In the Shadows of Regalia
by Kirk2062
Summary: Alternate universe where the Humans and Rats rule a massive empire. Rated T for Violence, language and possible suggestive themes later on
1. Prologue

**A/N This is my first fan-fic so please bare (or is it bear? I can never get that right -.-) with me :)**

**Like the Description said this is set in an alternate universe (Think Mirror, like Star Trek :P) in which the Underlanders rule a cruel militaristic Empire alongside the Rats.**

**The following takes place 7 months before the story begins, and In Regalia's Shadow, will follow the storyline (Albeit darker) of Gregor the Overlander. I expect something around 35 chapters and hope to update a few times a week. **

**Disclaimer: And my only one since I expect most people not to skip the prologue and after all you are reading a fan-fic. The Underland Chronicles and all characters within belong to the Brilliant Suzanne Collins, although a few unfamiliar characters may belong to me.  
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**Without further ado:**

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><p><strong>Prologue<strong>

_High upon a balcony he stood, gazing beyond the city, beyond the fields and into the darkness. Suddenly he heard faint noises approaching. Scratching, clawing, flapping, what sounded like bodies barely dragging themselves through the darkness toward him. Time slowly passed as he realized with horror what was coming. _

_Sworn enemies of the city._

_Former Allies._

_Creatures mangled almost beyond recognition by the cities inhabitants._

_All with one thought, with a singular purpose in mind…_

He awoke with a start to find a girl he recognized standing over him.

Once he was fully awake she began to speak, "I had a vision in my sleep"

With that statement he shuddered, last two times she had a "Vision" his Aunt had been killed, and her husband a few months later.

"Things are not right here" she continued, "In my vision I saw a world where we were not conquerors, where we strive for peace…" her voice trailed off for a moment, "I believe I can share it with you."

What else could he say? He nodded slowly and she leaned over and put her hand on his shoulder.

And it came to him.

It was not a perfect world, after a rocky start, and close to 400 years of war, peace had finally been attained. An alliance of mutual benefit was formed, between consenting kingdoms, not an Empire of conquered species. There was still some dissension, enemies to be dealt with, and other problems, but unlike the world he lived in something laid after the balcony he had stood on, after the city, and after the fields, something that illuminated all of the darkness beyond…

Hope.

It was then he knew it was time to break forth against everything that had been engrained into him since childhood. Time to change the bleak future that was ahead after the unavoidable fall of the Empire.

Even if it meant allying with the weak.

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><p><strong>So, what do you think? See any grammatical or spelling errors? Comments? Questions? Concerns? :P Guesses as to who the mysterious people are? <strong>

**Review and help me improve!**


	2. Chapter 1 A friendly welcome

**AN: Wow I feel really bad about about a *7* month delay so many excuses I could use but mainly life happens and unfortunately not in a good way. Right when I got to the point I wanted to restart work I had forgotten my password and the password to the E-mail I signed up with so big hassle there. Anyway I have taken the time to revise and expand Chapter 1 and hopefully it meets with your approval.**

**Oh and Doctor TDOGG: If you ever read this again or anyone else is wondering, yes there will be later on in the story but there's a twist, this being a "Evil-mirror" universe and all!  
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><p><strong>Chapter 1<strong>

Gregor was falling to his death, and he knew it.

He also finally knew what people meant by "Life flashing before your eyes". His mind was in about a million places at once, thinking all kinds of things to how he wished he had a girlfriend before he died, to how the dryer in their apartment building worked. His apartment's basement, this is where it all started. All he wanted to do was wash some clothes while his mother was away working hard trying to support their struggling family. Briefly he wondered if his father had fallen down the same shaft but quickly dismissed the thought. His father was alive, he just knew it.

"Weee Ge-go!" cried boots from several feet below him

Sweet innocent Boots, the one who found the shaft while playing in laundry room, the one who would hit the ground first…

Speaking of which by now they should have reached what Gregor's Dad had called "Terminal velocity", but it seemed that they were falling at a much slower pace than they should. Also what was this white mist surrounding them? As he reflected on this and wondered if he'd live to see what lied below, his body met the ground, and unconsciousness.

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><p>Slowly Gregor began to regain consciousness. "<em>I'm really starting to hate these falling dreams!<em>" he thought. But as his brain started registering the pain in his back he realized it had been no dream. Still groggy he barely made out the sound of people whispering to each other, but his eyes still hadn't adjusted to the dark enough yet to make out anything.

"- should we do with them?" Gregor made out

"-slaves in fields?" another voice replied

"-recognize him? –Warri- must kill both!"

"She be Princess be she?"

"No! She's not, -kill both!"

At this point Gregor had heard enough, obviously this was NOT good. He quickly came up with a plan to grab Boots who he saw lying beside him and run down the tunnel tunnels they were facing. He slowly started to get up and inch his way over to Boots when suddenly she cried out

"Look Ge-go! Beeg bugs! And mouses!"

"Halt you Overlander!" a gruff voice called out. "Or make a challenge of me chasing you down, it matters not"

Gregor turned back to where the voice came from and couldn't have run away at that point he was so scared. Staring back at him were the biggest Rats he'd ever seen and giant cockroaches with human riders. Slowly a man dismounted from a cockroach, and began to walk toward Gregor and Boots. As he got closer, Gregor tried to not vomit. The pale skin, violet eyes, and silver hair were shock enough, but an extremely disturbing feature he saw was that a jagged blade replaced his left arm all the way up to his elbow.

The man smiled evilly as he saw his reaction, "I'm a Major leading the 7th Ground Division of the Regalian Army, you may call me Major Mareth, or Mareth, or executioner, it matters not to me Overlander because soon die by my hand, you will."

Gregor Stared in shock for a moment unable to speak. "B-but, why kill me? I've never done anything to you." He heard some of the rats cackle in the background, "_What kind of place is this?_" his mind screamed.

Mareth began to speak again, "Since you are about to die, no difference does it make to tell you anyway, I suppose. Your coming is foretold; you are a warrior of great power and will bring ruin to the Regalian Empire! That is why I must drain your light."

Gregor's brain started thinking the obvious as it so often did in tense situations, and that usually led to him saying something that made him look rather simple-minded. "I don't even know how to fight. My mom won't even let me have a pocket knife." He pointed out rather meekly slowly gaining his confidence back.

"You really are without understanding," Mareth sneered "I mean to drain your light regard-"

In that moment a sickening crunch was heard, and one of the rats fell down at Mareth's feet. Soon more suddenly collapsed.

"Get them!" Mareth screamed, "The Overlander is mine!"

As Gregor's eyes adjusted more to the surrounding area and he looked harder he saw what appeared to be more giant rats attacking Mareth's battalion. The rats were covered in a black substance that he assumed was ash and blended in perfectly with the surrounding walls and ground. If they hadn't been moving around all that would be noticeable would be small amounts of pink that show through on their tails.

By now the humans and rats alike had recovered from their shock and were viciously retaliating. Creatures screamed dying before they hit the floor which was rapidly turning into a pool of red. Gregor tried to hide a whimpering Boots the best he could and stool as still as a statue among the carnage going on. Unfortunately it didn't look like he was going to get out of this unscathed. Mareth, who had just impaled a rat with his quite literal sword arm, took what look to Gregor like an ancient firearm like pirates of old would use, and took aim directly at Gregor's heart. Gregor stood motionless too shocked by what was going on to move. Time seemed to slow for Gregor and he grew slightly dizzy. It was almost as if he could see Mareth slowly pull the trigger and a small explosion as the ball of lead rocketed toward him. Out of seemingly nowhere a blur appeared at Gregor's side slamming him out of the way and time sped up. His savior a rat large by even this place's standards, let out a huff as the bullet grazed his side. Gregor got his breath knocked out of him and didn't think he could ever get up from where he lay.

Mareth screamed in primal rage and charged at Gregor's savior who had a look of disinterest on his face as he quickly whipped out his tail knocking Mareth back. Mareth recovered almost unnaturally fast and the fight between the two began in earnest.

"_When will this nightmare end!" _thought a shaking Gregor. This was nothing an 11 year old boy should ever see once let alone live through.

Gregor was suddenly startled more than he already was when a giant black object landed in front of him. "**Snap!**" something lashed out from both sides of the object and a sickening, "**Crack!**" was heard as an advancing rat and human's bones shattered, killing them instantly. As his vision came into focus he realized that the thing was in reality a giant bat! "Well this place just keeps getting worse!" Gregor thought. Everything was enormous and they could all talk. At this point he was prepared for singing dinosaurs and a band of elves to appear.

"Climb on! I'm taking you to safety." a rather gruff voice exclaimed.

Half a dozen thoughts were running through Gregor's mind again. The bat confirming that every creature in this place talked it seemed. Wondering what these creatures wanted with him. Would this bat even be able to hold him? The attackers seemed to be rescuing him but what if they were taking him and his sister to a worse fate?

Looking around at the bloodbath again Gregor pushed these thoughts from his mind and decided in that moment anywhere was better than here. He crawled over to the bat with his sister underneath him and weakly put her on top of the creature then climbed on himself. The large bat took off from the ground but that was the last Gregor remembered before he blacked out.

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><p>Gregor was in a nightmare.<p>

Again.

He stood in a literal pool of blood soaked up to the waste trying desperately to wade out. Mareth jumped out of the liquid swinging his "arm" towards Gregor's head.

"I'm scared Ge-go!"

"You will die Overlander!"

"Climb on!"

"I WANT TO GO HOME!" Gregor screamed above all the voices.

Mareth's sword arm drew closer and closer and right as it was about to hit, his eyes snapped open. What he saw, however almost made him believe he was still in his nightmare. The Giant rat that had saved him stood there, a diagonal scar going across his eye.

"Welcome to the Underland, boy."

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><p><strong>AN: Ok so I'm not too sure if I have Gregor in character very well, I remember him as being nervous and rambling a little bit but it has been a while since I've read the book and maybe I'm just projecting myself into him :P I'm pretty sure I have Boots down at least! Also I'm trying to work on Underland speak without making Mareth sound too "Yoda-like" or modern. He's also turning out to be quite the stereo-typical bad guy, and hopefully I can through some surprises in. Another problem I have is using the same words and phrases again and again but I'm trying to work on that too. Well if you have any suggestions, ways to improve with anything I mentioned or something you noticed, or you like the story feel free to review :)<strong>

**Final thought: Any Specific character alternates ****you would like to see or described in more detail? Some I intend to remain the same as in the book while others will be compassionate or just totally different. But if there's something specific you'd like to see (Within reason of course!) review and let me know!  
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	3. Chapter 2 What's going on?

**AN: *Sigh* I don't even want to get into it with so many excuses and such about not updating. Unfortunately life happens and writing fan-fiction will always take a back seat to anything else that goes on. (For me at least .) I'm glad I never put any promises in writing about update schedules. I'm at a "Meh, whenever I feel like it" kinda mood. I'm in a serious mind to say the updating schedule is once a year, that way it might be done in time for my grandchildren to read! It was tempting to start on another fanfiction I really wanted to write, but I have a thing about starting things and then not finishing them so I will at least finish this before I move on to another project. I seriously had this whole chapter written within a day of uploading the last just never got around to putting it up. So I spent today revising it and it's a lot better than my original version.**

**Chapter 2**

Gregor started to scream.

The nightmare, the grotesque battle he witnessed earlier, the giant creatures, and the fall, this was all too much for him. The giant rat standing over him quickly put a hand, or paw…whatever it was called over Gregor's mouth.

"Look boy, I'm here to help you. We rescued you and the pup, do you want to lead your friend Major Mareth to us?" The rat asked

Gregor took a moment to contemplate the words and then slowly shook his head no.

"Now if you promise not to alert the entire Underland to our location, I would be quite content to get back to my lunch." The rat motioned over to a pot with steam coming up from it with his tail.

Gregor nodded and the rat walked back over to his pot, slouched over and began slurping up some sort of creamy concoction. Knowing what trying to rush off did last time, Gregor took a moment to take in his surroundings. He was in a cave with a constant dripping noise that could eventually drive someone mad and the smell of rotten eggs pervaded the entire place. Looking further in both directions he could make out more rats a few bats and other creatures. "I bet Boots would be having a ball with this" Gregor thought.

Wait a second.

Where was Boots?! Gregor was tempted to panic but with the horrific things he had seen earlier and the fact that he didn't want to lead that man, no, monster to where they were at, the panic mostly subsided.

In its place anger arose.

Why did these people decide he of all people should die? He had never done anything to them. What had he done to deserve to fall into this hellhole with these nightmarish…**things**? What had these "Rescuers" done with Boots? Again he was overwhelmed with the entirety of it all. At home at and school Gregor had been a nice kid and rather average. He was nice and courteous and a bit innocent about the world in general. Within moments this place had permanently changed his outlook on things. At home his parents strictly insisted that none of what they called "Foul language" be used and Gregor had never given them any issues on this and never sworn in his entire life, he just didn't want to.

Now seemed like a good time

"What the _hell_ have you done with _my_ sister, and what is this _damned place?!_" hissed Gregor, his anger rising.

"My, my, what a temper you have" The rat lazily said, taking a moment to sniff the air. A surprised look momentarily crossed his face but he quickly went back slouching against the wall. "To answer your first question, the pup is fine, she's been an annoying handful for the past few days but she's been getting more attention than she could possibly hope for from our resident crawlers. They've declared her to be a princess and quite literally worship her. Oh joy, here she is now." He ended rather sarcastically.

Gregor saw Boots skipping up to him from down the cave a ways "I've been out for days!" His mind exclaimed. Now there was no hope of making it back before his mother called the police. Lizzy would have been brought back from camp and they both would be worried sick.

"Hi Gee-go! You awake!"

"Yes little girl," He mustered up his best smile, "I'm awake."

"I see beeg mouses and beeg bugs and beeeg bats!" She exclaimed spreading her arms out, more and more and leaning back until she fell down and started giggling. "Beeg mouse is scary!" she said pointing at the rat.

"Yes, I am, now go run back to big bugs and bother them. Shoo!" He barred his fangs to make the point.

"Eep!" she cried and ran back to the cockroaches

Gregor was tempted to rebuke the rat but decided not to. If he had put up with Boots for several days and that was all he did, then he was thankful. Suddenly he was really hungry his time without eating finally catching up with him. In fact he was actually on the verge of passing out yet again. Realizing this rat slid over a bowl filled with that steaming cream stuff. Not wasting any time Gregor began to chow down, no questions asked.

"Well," said the rat, "Not to interrupt you or anything, I see you're quite busy eating **my** shrimp cream sauce. But I thought it might be of some value to introduce myself so you wouldn't just have to call me 'The rat' for the duration of our relationship. My name is Ripred."

"Rip-red" repeated Gregor between mouthfuls, trying to get the inflection right. My name is Gregor, my little sister is Boots, but her actual name is Margaret, we just call her Boots because she goes around stealing people's boots cause of some musician my Dad likes." Gregor ended rather lamely, his explanation confusing even himself.

"Should have been Gorger the way you eat" Ripred muttered to himself as he watched Gregor finish off the shrimp cream sauce. "That was probably too rich to give you to start out eating on." he observed. "I'll wait till your stomach settles until I feed you anymore. I don't want you wasting good food I could be eating! In the meantime I guess I can explain to you what this 'Damned place' we call home is."

Gregor suddenly felt guilty about his earlier outburst. What was happening to him?

Ripred momentarily paused waiting for Gregor's full attention before taking a deep breath and began to speak:

"Once many years ago…Oh who am I kidding, I'm no story-teller! I'll just quickly tell you the facts. And no questions until I finish ok boy?"

"Around 400 years ago, a crazy human named Bartholomew of Sandwich supposedly had a vision of a land under the Earth and set off with a group of followers to live there. Sandwich arrived in New York and negotiated with a Native tribe there that knew about the underground world. The tribe had no desire to live there and rightly thought Sandwich mad, if not brave to try and do so. The first scouts Sandwich sent found an ideal plot of land to build a settlement on but it was inhabited by diggers or what you call moles. Sandwich wanted to make an agreement with the diggers but they refused to listen. A few of the colonists wanted to poison their water supply but Sandwich would have no part of it instead making a small settlement elsewhere. The Humans became friends with the fliers and soon seeing the obvious advantages the two groups allied with one another. Where the humans settled however was not very ideal and they were constantly under attack by the rats or gnawers who despised them. Sandwich still wanted to hold on to diplomacy but faith was lost in him. He was imprisoned and those daring enough to seize power did so, their brutality enough to convince the rats to ally with them in taking the Underland. Within months the Diggers were driven off and Regalia, the human's new stronghold, started on. The people gained faith in their new leaders and rallied behind their call to submit all to their will. Within two years the crawlers were subjugated forming the backbone of the Human's ground forces. By this time an active resistance to the new empire began and an all-out war took place. A turning point came when the Spinners or spiders that were outwardly helping the Human-Gnawer alliance began covertly helping out the resistance. Once the Human's learned of this they decided to make an example and slaughtered over half of the Spinner nation. They then went a step further public torturing the Spinner Queen and dismembering her along with several other captured Spinners. Seeing these atrocities and with the promise the same would happen to them all other species stopped resisting and submitted to the Human's and Rats. Peace then came to the Underland lasting these 400 years. As for Sandwich, he went mad scribbling prophecies for the rest of his long life. The victor writes history however so the Humans viewed Sandwich as a saint like figure proclaiming that his prophecies were real. In reality they merely used them for propaganda and swaying the people with the fact that several did come true reinforcing the beliefs."

Gregor was stunned, to say the least.

He was really fascinated listening to Ripred tell the Underland's story, and he suspected (Despite Ripred's claims to the contrary) the rat would love to sit around and tell stories to "pups" about his "good old days".

Gregor asked several questions both good and occasionally somewhat obvious as proved by Ripred's sarcastic replies and annoyance. Boot's came back for a while and listened but the toddler fell asleep unable to pay attention for more than the hour that they had sit here.

Gregor knew of the tyranny that went on in his world, but it seemed that there were people who stood up for the right thing and that voices of protests were always heard when "evil" things happened. Needless to say he was quite curious as to why such a thing didn't happen here.

"Why didn't any of the human's do anything about what was going on?" Gregor finally asked.

"Oh believe me they tried boy, but in the beginning there didn't seem to be a reason to do so." Ripred paused for a moment before continuing, "Think of it this way, when your ancestors came to America they thought that the Native American's were savages and that they were doing the whole world a favor by forcibly educating them or driving them off their lands. It took years for them to realize their mistake and by then it was too late to undo or really change what had been done. By the time the people in general wanted an end to the horrible acts being committed it was too late. People in power want to stay in power and will do whatever it takes. Humans are in no way squeamish about torture even to their own kind. Fear is what keeps the people in line these days, fear of the Empire."

Ripred's philosophical side shocked Gregor along with the fact he knew so much about his home. "How do you know what happens up there?" He asked as soon as Ripred stopped talking.

"Oh I used to go up at night and read in your libraries, before the humans and rats started guarding all the entrances." Ripred casually replied. Seeing Gregor's confusion he rolled his eyes and continued, "Yes, I know how to read, most rats do, but without thumbs we can't write, quite frustrating. I enjoyed going to your world to read, eat books, and do whatever I pleased. No one pays too much attention in New York, especially at night so it was easy to get away with. What made the biggest impression to me about your world was the fact that you have weapons that could destroy everything, amazing mechanisms with endless possibilities, and devices that can contact anyone you wish and yet…your problems remain the same as ours if not worse. The potential for cooperation and change is greater than ever before, yet human nature only seems to worsen with time. It's a shame really." Concluded Ripred sighing.

Gregor had to agree with him on that but before he could put anything into words Ripred raised from his slouch and began to speak again.

"Well I think we've stayed here long enough to have our scent drowned out and Mareth off our trail. If you're quite done sitting around and chit-chatting like an old woman, we can be on our way."

Gregor laughed a little. From his perspective he had only been here a few hours but he had grown to like Ripred none the less, especially what seemed to be his trademark sarcasm. Gregor could see that the beneath the rough exterior laid, well, another rough layer and so on, but that there was the potential for kindness and Ripred did have feelings other than his usual sarcastic and cynical demeanor. Not that Gregor would say that to Ripred's face.

Or maybe he was just reading too much into him. It helped that Ripred did save his life and seemed to care somewhat for his feelings and needs. In Gregor's mind that definitely counted for something in this dangerous new world he was having to brave.

He looked up from his thoughts just in time for him to see something that looked like a backpack being tossed at him. He barely caught it and stumbled back a bit, surprised by the amount of force Ripred could casually use.

"A carrier for the pup" Ripred explained nonchalantly "You'll get to meet the rest of the beings that make up our sorry little group later, for now we need to get moving." He slapped his tail against the cave wall a few times. "Let's move it!" He shouted and proceeded to bark out orders.

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><p>Gregor watched as the various creatures assembled into a very small, but long formation and proceeded to walk further down the cave. He could make out a few bats, several cockroaches and rats and a couple of spiders. He didn't see any humans however or the bat who saved his life. Ripred came back up beside him and started walking at a brisk pace gesturing for him to follow. As he walked he began to think about home. Now that the fear and then excitement from learning about this place had worn off, he couldn't take his mind off of it. How was his mom holding up? How could he ever explain all these things to her? The sooner he could get out of here the less likely it would be something bad would happen to him, much less Boots. How would he ever live with himself if something happened to her?<p>

"When can we go home?" he finally asked.

"It took you long enough to ask." Ripred said. Noticing Gregor's seriousness he sighed and quickly added "I'm afraid I don't have an answer for you Gregor. It's going to be hard evading patrols and all the entrances to your world are guarded. I wish I could give you a definite answer, but for now you'll just have to have some patience. I don't want anything happening to you or the pup because you run off homesick, agreed?"

Gregor nodded. He was upset at the fact it might be a while to get back but Ripred was right he didn't want to endanger himself or especially Boots for that matter. He'd just have to wait things out.

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><p><strong>AN: Ah the exposition. Hopefully that clears some things up and you can clearly see the point of diversion in the timelineParallel-universe. Wanted to take the time to explain a few things but a good story (Which I hope this will turn out to be) should explain itself, so I guess these are my ramblings to satisfy myself. **

**Just like the last chapter this one covers around 2 chapters of the actual book. I wanted to throw in some obvious references to the original story and I'm pretty sure you will be able to recognize some of the dialogue I threw in there even if it's not from the original character ;)**

**I hope Ripred is not too OC (It is OC right? :/ Own Character or something like that) I blame the fact that this is a divergent timeline :P For me at least he's easier to write for. Gregor is scared out of his mind like any 11 year old would be and Ripred is taking on a little more of the role he did for Lizzy. Ripred remains in pretty much the same position he was in for ****Gregor the Overlander**** fighting the system, the misunderstood rat who is growing tired of fighting and wants peace.**

**Gregor however is a different story. Definitely not bashing Suzanne Collins, (she was writing a preteen to teenager series of novels after all for a children's publishing company) but I feel Gregor should have been a lot more affected by all he went through in the first book. Maybe I'm just missing something Feel free to point it out) But, when I read the first couple of chapters to the Prophecy of Bane I got the idea "Yeah feel underground, had an adventure, hope I don't run into rats again!" Kinda glossed over all the death and violence and injury Gregor experienced. So I'm trying to play that angle up some more. Gregor went through a lot for a 11 year old boy in my first chapter so he's quickly having to "grow-up" and just deal with things. In today's world swearing, by a lot of people is used in everyday conversations just as another word in a person's vocabulary. "Damn, and hell" might not seem like much for someone to say but speaking from experience suddenly going from never cussing all your life to doing so is a bit of a big step (Although I still don't so who knows .) Anyway I felt the need to throw the explanation in the chapter to show more of how this is affecting Gregor. Although the sorta innocent view of the world is gone he still remains quickly trusting of others who show him kindness as shown with Ripred.**

**Going to have to break him of that habit...**

**Tell me what you think!**


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